“Your parents don’t want you, either, do they?” I ask softly. “That’s how you ended up with that snow monster.”
She shrugs. “I haven’t exactly been Princess Sunshine. I can’t blame them.” She waves at the air. “Hey, doesn’t matter now, right?”
But clearly it does matter to her. Jinx is all broken inside. The way she acts, like she doesn’t care, is just a mask. I wish I could make her feel better. Something tells me Jinx is a lot worse off than I am. “You can’t be that bad,” I say. “You’re a kid. Parents are supposed to stick with their kids. It’s their fault, not yours.”
She doesn’t glance at me. Just bites down on her lower lip until she draws blood that trickles down her chin.
“Jinx, stop it.” I put my hand on her arm. This is the part where I’m probably supposed to hug her, since we’re friends and all, but the thought makes me feel even weirder than this drink does. Instead, I take the bracelet off and nudge her arm with it. “Hey. This kappa bracelet.” I swallow. Now my words sound fuzzy. I poke her harder. “Have it.”
She glances down at the solid-gold cuff. “You don’t want to give me that.”
“Yesshhhh. Yessssh, I do.” I push her with it. “Takes it.” My ability to speak English has apparently vanished.
“I said I don’t want it.” She smacks the bracelet out of my hand, sending it clattering across the floor. The room goes still. The creatures stop chattering and stare. Jinx stands up, upsetting my mug, spilling the drink. Her breathing comes hard as she leans in toward me. “Listen, you little speck of dirt, I’m not taking your stinking butt-ugly bracelet, and I am not your stinking monkey. Got that?” Jinx’s hands ball into fists.
“What’s your problema? I’m just being nice. Something you are highly unfamiliar with.” I put the mug upright. Tanuki scrambles forward with a cloth to sop up the liquid. “Calm down.”
“I am calm!” Jinx’s face wrinkles into a scowl. “I don’t need your charity, you weak little half-breed.”
My head gets so hot my earwax melts. “No wonder your parents didn’t want you!”
Jinx’s face goes still; she’s as expressionless as a statue again. “That’s right,” she says quietly. “You’re exactly right, for once.” She walks away, disappearing into the cave’s darkness.
I feel bad. Maybe I went too far. But I wasn’t the one who spilled a drink and threw a bracelet. I was just trying to be nice. What did she think was going to happen? I inhale deeply. Dad never would have said something as hurtful as that, no matter how nasty somebody acted to him. He would have been all Zen and said something like, “Jinx, I’m sorry you’re having a rough day.” But he’s a forty-five-year-old professor. I’m just a twelve-year-old boy. It’s her fault, not mine.
I help Tanuki clean up, mopping up the drink with rags that I hope aren’t actually living creatures. “Sorry, Tanuki.”
“No worries.” He stands upright again. “I am glad you are helping her, Momotaro-san. That girl has been through a lot.”
I straighten, feeling sick to my stomach. “I doubt I’m helping her much.”
Kitsune turns back into fox form and curls up in a C-shape, settling his tail over his paws. The umbrella sets a shallow bowl of matcha in front of him. “So he’s it?” the fox says, his voice sounding exactly like a fox’s should. Wily. “The Momotaro without magical powers? Ha. Tanuki, all the animals from far and wide will be coming to your house to see this spectacle.”
All the creatures laugh heartily.
“I will lock the door when I run out of matcha.” Tanuki smiles—or seems to smile with his snout. “Rest now, while you can, little hero.”
I burrow into my pile of hay. The umbrella refills my drink, and I empty it again. I feel so sad all of a sudden. Yes, I’m nothing special. Yes, I’m not a Momotaro. Yes, I’m just a big garden-variety jerk who made an orphan girl cry.
Tanuki pulls hay over me like a blanket.
I try to sit up, but my head spins. I feel numb all over, kind of like I’m not even in my body. “Doesthismatchahavealcoholinit?” My words slur. I manage, “Myobāchanwillnotbehappywithyou.”
“I’m sorry,” Jinx whispers from somewhere in the cave. “I’m sorry.”
But my eyes are closed, and I could just be dreaming it.
Ojīchan stands over me, shaking me with both hands. I open my eyes a little wider. I can see straight through him. It’s not the buff, young version. It’s the pale old man from the bus stop, here in the cave. If I were at home, I’d be a little freaked out. But here I just say, “Hey! What’s up?”
“Wake up!” Ojīchan says, his voice like a far-off echo. “Get up, Xander. Hurry!”
I try to rouse myself, but I can’t move. I’m too deep asleep. Too comfortable.
“Later,” I mumble, and everything goes dark again.
When I do wake up, it’s to the worst smell ever. Worse than a pail of dirty diapers left for three weeks in the sun. Worse than the Easter eggs I didn’t find behind the couch for a month. Worse than a garbage dump in a sewer full of cow waste.
I half wish I could stay asleep so I wouldn’t have to smell this awfulness anymore. Daylight hits my face, and, reluctantly, I wake up one hundred percent. I’m moving. But my legs aren’t moving.
My face is banging against something slimy.
I open my eyes all the way.
The ground is above my head. Then I see two moving humanoid legs. They’re red and black and blue-gray—and raw-looking. Not exactly like raw meat you’d find at the grocery store. More like somebody’s wearing a costume made out of old random carcasses they found on the side of the road.
This carrion thing is carrying me over its shoulder.
“STOP!” I yell. I have to take a big breath to do it, and I almost pass out because the smell enters my lungs. My stomach retches and I’m sick all over the thing’s back and legs. But the creature doesn’t even pause, or say “Ew,” or anything.
You know it’s bad when barf improves the smell.
“He needs a rest,” a girl’s voice says. I recognize it as Jinx’s.
The thing grunts, but stops and lowers me to the ground.
I splay out on my back, looking up. The monster makes a low, guttural sound and stares back at me with beady red-black bird eyes set into its rotting flesh. Zombie? I try to wiggle away, but I can’t. The ground’s too hard, too sharp under me.
“The best thing you can do is relax.” Jinx kneels over me, but I can’t see her face because the sun’s behind her. Her hair hides her expression. The sky is full of black smoke. I’d rather inhale smoke than the monster smell.
“Jinx, what is this thing?” It looks like a swamp monster. A dead one. “What happened?”
“Shush.” She smooths the hair back out of my face. “We were hoping you’d stay asleep during this part.”
I don’t understand. Not a bit. I scoot backward again, and the monster grunts and grabs me around my ankle, his long bony fingers closing slimily over me. I’m covered in disgusting, rotten warm green goo. “Where are Peyton and Inu?”
She doesn’t answer. I look around. A second monster stands behind us.
On his back, like a crazy Santa, he’s carrying a mesh bag containing my dog and my best friend. They are unconscious, but alive—I see their sides moving. “Peyton! Inu!” I try to yell, but my voice is barely a whisper. I clear my throat and try again. “You guys okay?” My head is pounding with the worst headache ever. Ow.
“Don’t fight it, Xander.” Jinx stands up and gestures to the creature. My sword’s strung around her waist, along with both my netsuke.
The beast picks me up and throws me over its shoulder like a sack of potatoes, continuing on its galumphing up-and-down walk. Oof. That did not make my stomach feel good. What’s going on?
Then I know.
Jinx.
Jinx betrayed me.
I turn my head and try to breathe shallowly through my nose so I don’t gag again. “Are you one of them?”
“What are you?” I shout.
“This is my real shape.” Her voice is as dry and hopeless as that desert we crossed.
“I trusted you!” Angry tears spring to my eyes and I don’t care. Actually, the tears help my eyes feel better—they’re stinging from the goop. “I saved you.”
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I’m helping you.” Her voice sounds determined.
“How?” I pound on the beast’s back, but it’s useless.
“We’re taking you back to your ship, Xander.”
“What? What about my father?” I try to look at her, but all I can see is a blur.
She doesn’t answer.
“My father!” I flail around again, sending bits of slime all over the place. “Take me to him. Not to the ship.”
“Xander.” Her voice is quiet. “You’re no match for those oni. You need to grow up some more. If your father had to choose between his life and yours, whose do you think he’d pick?”
A terrible scream starts in the soles of my feet and travels up through the top of my head. I scream without words, louder than an ambulance siren. The thing carrying me grunts and lets me slide to the ground so it can double over and put its hands to its ears. Good.
I push myself up and stand in front of Jinx, whose mouth hangs open. Rage makes me shake uncontrollably and I have to concentrate to still myself. “That’s not your choice to make, Jinx.”
“It is.” She grabs me by the shoulders. “Having one Momotaro alive is better than having two dead ones. He’s sparing you. Don’t you get that?”
“Who?” I break free of her grip. The slimy dead-meat creature grabs me yet again and throws me over its shoulder. This time, it ties me down with something even slimier. “Jinx, this isn’t right!”
“It is, Xander.” Her voice sounds calm now. “Tanuki and I knew you wouldn’t leave on your own, so we had to do it this way. I’m sorry. But I know your father would agree.”
I close my eyes, feeling my forehead bumping against the creature. The thing is, I remember my father telling me to stay in the house, no matter what. It’s true that he wouldn’t want me here. He knew I was too wimpy to try something like this. And of course my father would rather die himself than have me die, too.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to find him. How could I live with myself if I made it this far and didn’t even try to rescue him?
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice is as strong as a piece of granite.
She doesn’t answer.
The sun bakes the slime on my back dry. I’m almost used to the smell. I guess you really can get used to anything.
Even though crazy yoga people spend all their time on their heads, upside down, it will actually make you pass out if you do it too long. So that’s what happens—I black out. And really, that’s better.
No dreams of grandfather this time. No nothing. I’m just out, and when I come to again, it’s because of the heat.
I’m lying on something hard and hot. My neck has an awful knot in it, and the rest of me aches. I blink slowly. The surface I’m on feels and looks like super-hard black glass. Volcanic rock.
Bright sunlight creeps in through white smoke. I sit up slowly, trying to take everything in. I’m in the middle of a valley.
Jinx said she was taking me to the ship. This isn’t the ship. Where are we?
It’s a volcanic crater. A circle of mountains surrounds a city that was built in the center. It’s abandoned now, though. Husks of houses, shops, factories—they’re all here. Rusted-out cars parked next to crumbling sidewalks. Dry yellow grass and bushes sticking out through cracks everywhere. White smoke belches up from crevices in the flat landscape.
A large circular gap surrounds the entire clearing where we now stand. A ring of fire. It’s keeping the other wild oni out, I guess, and us inside.
Everywhere, dark shadows scurry and glide among the ruins. I can’t tell what the creatures are. Rats, or dogs, maybe? Some walk upright, some close to the ground. But when I see them, tiny hairs I didn’t even know I had stand on end.
Run! my body screams. I’m not tied up. I get to my feet and look around with my blurry eyes for Peyton and Inu. There’s a fog of volcanic ash that makes everything appear to be happening in black and white, with only a little bit of faded color. I don’t see them, or anyone else, just the oni. I’ll go find my friends. I take a tentative step forward, and the ground seems to quiver like a water bed.
I put my hands on my thighs, trying to get my bearings. I take a deep breath and get ready.
But before I go anywhere, I hear her voice. “Xander.”
I turn to see Jinx lying in the black ashy dirt. Her eyes are almost swollen shut, her face blue and purple. Dozens of scratches mar her face and arms, and dark ash has mingled with her blood, making her look like a burned-out log. Her lower lip is split open and oozing. Somebody’s beaten her up.
Even though she’s the one who had that yucky-smelling oni bring me here, my gut instinct is to want to get her some ice. “What happened?”
She looks at the ground. A tear splashes down her face.
She makes a noise that sounds like a choked-off word.
“What?” I say. “Tell me.”
She makes another strangled, garbled noise, like somebody stabbed her in the back with a rusty knife. Then big, deep sobs erupt.
“Stop!” I say in my sternest tone, hoping to jolt her out of her crying paralysis. “Get up and help me, Jinx.”
She blubbers, sucking up snot and blowing it out. Ew. “I can’t,” she says finally. “Ican’tIcan’tIcan’t.”
“Yes, you can.” I make my voice sound as nice as I possibly can. “Jinx, come on. Help me, and I’ll help you.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, Xander.”
A foot kicks her in the side, and the girl winces. Sorry never helped anything, Jinx, a deep voice says. Forgiveness means it’s already too late. Better not to make a mistake in the first place.
I look up. Next to Jinx stands the beast-man.
I gasp and, like a little bug trying to run away from a foot that’s about to squish it, try to scrabble away. But my body won’t do what I want. I am frozen.
When he sees me looking at him, his thin lips break into a smile over the jagged teeth. I shiver involuntarily.
He takes a step closer to me and sticks his tongue out. The three little snakes at the tip dance and hiss over my face. I shut my eyes. Their tongues tickle my lashes, my eyebrows.
I try to back up and yell and punch him all at once, but my body won’t do what I tell it. I reach for my sword, and there’s nothing at my back. That’s right—I don’t have it anymore. My muscles go slack and I fall to my knees, my heart thumping.
The tail swishes back and forth as the deep voice speaks. Momotaro. Jinx told me so much about you. His mouth doesn’t move. The voice purrs low and loud in my head.
I look at Jinx. “You know him?”
A chuckle. Better than you think, Xander.
She doesn’t answer, just squishes her eyes shut.
The beast-man puts his arm around her. Don’t be shy, Jinx. Acknowledge your father.
I try to swallow, but my mouth’s so dry there’s nothing to go down. “This is your father? An oni?”
Not a beast-man, Xander, the thing says in my head. A satori. Sort of like your Bigfoot. You should have studied with your father. He must be disappointed to have such a lazy son.
Jinx’s shoulders slump, and her voice sounds funny when she speaks, because of her swollen lip. “He told me he would help you get back to the ship, Xander.”
“Yeah, right.” Volcanic ash tickles my throat, making me cough. I manage to produce enough saliva to spit into the dirt. Rude, I know, but sometimes you have to be rude to survive. “I should have listened to Peyton. We should have left you behind.”
She doesn’t answer, just closes her eyes. But somet
hing prevents me from being too mad at her. It is weird that she got beat up instead of me….Something’s not right.
The beast-man chuckles. What Jinx failed to realize was that not all oni keep their word as readily as the kappa. Even if an oni is your own father.
I look at broken Jinx, who is crying and bloody, and this awful thing who is her father. Who abandoned her and forced her to live in a jungle. Who beat her so horribly. Suddenly I’m not mad at her anymore.
Because I understand.
We all want to believe our parents will do the right thing. Just like I’ve always hoped against hope that my mother will come home someday. Jinx wanted to believe her father would keep his word.
She’s just a kid. Like me. Only, I’ve got a father and a grandmother who care about me, and faithful friends like Peyton and Inu. She has nothing. Nobody.
I stare up at the beast-man and instead of fear, I feel something else.
Resolve.
I draw my head up and square my shoulders.
Let us go, I say, strong in my head. Let us go and I won’t harm you.
The beast-man’s eyes widen for a moment. Then he throws back his head and laughs. “Oh, look, it thinks it can fight. How adorable.” He speaks aloud this time, and Jinx stares at me. He gestures around him. “Will you let all of us go, then, noble Momotaro? For we all stand and fight as one.”
I look beyond him. Things are moving in the ruins.
Those creatures I saw before are not rats or dogs. They’re monsters. Oni.
Thousands of them.
They’re in the sky, too.
Creatures of all shapes and sizes weave and bob above us on leathery wings. Blobs of flesh. Swords with legs. Troll-like things. It’s like every scary fairy-tale monster I know—and a lot I’ve never imagined—has come to life.
I swear, every hair on my arm stands on end. I feel the overwhelming need to run away. But I still can’t move.
“Dude,” I hear a voice—a real voice that I recognize—whisper. Peyton!
Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters Page 18
